Depends on What You Want
by Beyond the Black
Summary: Harry's up to no good and making his own choices featuring a living sirius


I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING BASED ON OR RELATED TO HARRY POTTER

I DO NOT MAKE ANY MONEY OFF OF THIS STORY

xxBEYOND THE BLACKxx

Chapter 1: A Loving home

Harry James Potter sat in his cupboard under the stairs in number 4 Private Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey wonder what he had done in a past life to deserve such horrible treatment. From out in the garden, hidden in some rose bushes he had watched TV shows through the drawing room window. He knew children were not supposed to be treated like he was, they were supposed to be loved and cared for, and so what made him different? Aunt Petunia would smack him upside the head . ?&id=1904626&catid=0&KEY=&DB_OEM_ID=100anytime he would ask about his mother and father, so at just five years old he had just learned not to ask about them. He mourned the coming of winter since it meant that Petunia's rose bushes would die. There would be nowhere for him to hide and watch the telly, it also meant that he was now old enough to go into the attic to retrieve all of the yule decorations that his dearest aunt would want put up this year.

As November passed Petunia called Harry to start decorating the house as she ordered. Garland with small lights were to run up the bannister and hang over the front doorway and garage. She had no problem making the young boy climb up the tall ladder where he may fall. Next she ordered that the tree with fairy lights be brought down because they were going to be entertaining some important people from Vernon's work this year. Harry tested all the lights and began to assemble the tree by himself. There was no way Aunt Petunia was going to let a real tree drop its needles all over her spotless home, thought Harry. Once he was done with the tree he was allowed a small lunch consisting of an apple, water and bread with butter before being ordered back to work. "Harry! Go fetch all the ornaments for the tree from the attic, and be quick about it! I want to see them on the tree in the next thirty minutes!" Declared Aunt Petunia. Internally Harry balked, there were about eight boxes of ornaments for the tree, a few weighing more than he did. He trudged up the two flights of stairs silently, no wanting his dear Aunt to complain about him to Uncle Vernon, who so loved to use his belt on him whenever he did something wrong.

Harry got to the top of the stairs and climbed the ladder into the attic and promptly found the boxes of ornaments for the tree. Last year Vernon had moved the boxes since he had still been too small to move them, but that meant they were stacked very high since Vernon was a very tall man. Over in the corner Harry spotted an old metal chair that was just the right height for him to reach the top box. He dragged the chair over and proceeded to start taking the boxes to the drawing room where he had just set up the tree. The weight of the boxes was starting to tire him out and he was starting to slow down. With five minutes left out of his allotted thirty he came back for his last box, as he picked it up he finally noticed the strange trunk underneath the pile of boxes he had been moving. It looked out of place compared to all the pristine decorations and boxes that Petunia kept. This one looked like it had existed for a thousand years, scrapped, dinged and the stain was faded. Yet, the name painted in gold on the top looked almost brand new. Harry had just begun to teach himself his letters the summer before so at first he had a hard time reading what the name was. Doing as he was taught he began to sound out the letters to form words. Lily Evans. "Lie-lee Ee-Vuh-ah-n-s…Lih-Lee Eh-Vuh-ns….Lily Evans." The Name was Lily Evans. He knew that his Aunt Petunia had once been Petunia Evans but he had never heard of a Lily Evans. Harry assumed that Lily must be a girl's name because he had never met a boy named Lily. Perhaps this Lily person had been his mother, he knew that his mother had been Petunia's sister, but Petunia never talked about his mother so maybe Lily was his grandmother. He glanced down at a watch that had once been Dudley's "Oh no" he thought "I only have two minutes to get this box downstairs before Petunia yells at me. Harry pelted down the stairs as fast as he could with the box in his small hands. He sat it down just as Petunia walked in the room. "Good, boy. At least you can finish that simple task. I now want the entire tree decorated by the time Vernon get home from work in exactly three hours. If you are not finished or the tree does not look the way I want it to be prepared to face the consequences!" Petunia said.

Harry set about his task and opened all the boxes and laid them out neatly around the tree. The ornaments had all been meticulously packed by color the year before with the smallest on top and the largest at the bottom. Slowly he worked around the tree, starting at the top so as not to break any that would be placed on the bottom. It was slow, tedious work for a five year old but he was happy with the way the tree was turning out. There were only about ten ornaments left along with thirty minutes left before Uncle Vernon returned home from work when Dudley came careening into the drawing room chasing after a RC car he had gotten for his birthday the spring previously. Of course by the age of five Dudley was already a very large child with little athletic ability. As he was not paying attention to his surroundings and without the dexterity to stop himself, Dudley Dursley ran full force into the tree that Harry had almost finished decorating.

With a great loud crash the tree fell on Dudley just as Harry had put his hands out to stop him. Before he could react Petunia ran in from the kitchen where she had been cooking dinner to see Harry with his hands out and her poor Diddy-kins crying and flailing his limbs from under the enormous tree. "Boy! Go straight to your cupboard. Vernon will deal with you later!" she screamed. Harry ran back to his cupboard and curled up under the shelving where it would be harder fir Vernon to reach him. He could still hear Dudley wailing from three rooms over about how the freak had done it on purpose because he was jealous of Dudley's RC car. Harry, of course, knew that wasn't true. Battery operated ekectronics didn't seem to work around him, but tahat wouldn't matter. Harry knew that they would believe their Darling Dudley no matter what.

Twenty minutes passed and like clockwork Harry heard the garage door open in the room next to him. Vernon was home. Harry sat shaking in the smallest corner of his cupboard as he heard the fat man trudge past him, hang up his keys. He knew from experience that the first place Vernon went after getting home was the kitchen, he also knew that Petunia would be there with a small glass of aged brandy waiting for him. The door to the kitchen shut followed by a steady stream of Petunia's voice. No doubt she was telling Vernon what Harry had supposedly done less than half an hour prior. Petunia's voice came to a stop, followed by a deep breath several heavy footfalls got louder as they came closer, but stopped all together outside his door. Now Vernon had never been a small man but after his marriage to Petunia and the birth of Dudley, he had put on about 100 pounds he took all that considerable weight and threw it into the tiny, flimsy door protecting Harry from the wrath of his uncle.

Harry cowered back even further into his shadowy corner upon seeing Vernon's large, pulsing, purple face. Vernon reached in and grabbed him by the hair at the crown of his head and yanked him harshly out of the small cupboard. Harry's head was stinging frim the force behind the yank and his eyes were watering from the chunk of hair that had been pulled from his head. Vernon proceeded to slam him up against the wall supporting the staircase and snarled in Harry's face "Thought it'd funny, didn't ya? Trying to kill my boy for a RC car! I should kill you right here, you worthless piece of shit. If your reckless parents hadn't've died we would never been stuck with your sorry ass. We should've dropped you of at that orphanage down the road as soon as we saw ya!" Harry had tried to stammer out some excuses but Vernon wasn't having any of it "bend over boy, and do it now!" Vernon commanded, while pulling his leather belt out of his loops. Harry obediently bent in half and proceeded to thoroughly lash the boy until he was bleeding through his too large pants. Vernon stopped and Harry crumpled to the floor. "Go clean yourself up Boy. Don't get blood on your aunt's carpets or I'll beat you again, and the next time you won't be able to stand up!"

The boy ran up the stairs to the small bathroom on the second floor that he was allowed to use. He wet down a paper towel and managed to wipe off his bleeding bum. Underneath the sink there was some of the cheap toilet paper that he was allowed to use. Harry proceeded to fold some pieces up and place them over the area that were bleeding the worst. Fearing he had taken too long he scurried back downstairs to his cupboard where Vernon was still waiting for him. "I hope you don't think that's your only punishment, freak. You'll be locked in your cupboard for the next week. No food, no water. Here's a bottle for you to pee in, but every time I hear a sound from you it'll be another week in the cupboard!" Vernon growled. Harry was then unceremoniously shoved back into his little cupboard, he hit his head on the wall as he went down but he was already so far out of it that he didn't notice. Vernon proceeded to throw the small water bottle in his face, slam the door and loudly shut the lock. The young boy managed to crawl onto his tiny toddler sized mattress and pull the threadbare blanket over himself before he passed unconsciousness and false bliss.


End file.
